[SPONSORED] ⚡ From Mining Pool to Infrastructure Platform: Nine Years of EMCD

When the 2024 Bitcoin halving reshaped the economics of small-scale mining, most hobbyist pools scrambled to survive. EMCD didn’t. By the end of 2025, miners on EMCD’s pool mined 4,550 Bitcoin (BTC), while total hashrate reached an average of 34.11 EH/s. Now, the gap has widened to something closer to a chasm.

These numbers reflect more than scale. They reflect survival — and growth — across multiple market cycles in one of the most volatile sectors of emerging technology. We sat down with the EMCD founder and CEO Michael Jerlis to find out how a 2017 mining pool transformed into a 2026 infrastructure platform.

The 2017 Foundation: Stability Over Hype

EMCD launched in 2017 as a BTC mining pool. What followed was nine years of deliberate expansion. As the market evolved, the pool added support for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and other networks, while introducing geo-distributed infrastructure to reduce latency and improve operational consistency for miners across regions.

Scaling Beyond the Pool

By early 2020s, EMCD had reached scale. The infrastructure was stable, the geography expanded, and growth was steady. The next question was where to go from there.

Recognition and Market Expansion

In 2025, EMCD had more than 66,500 miners and product users from across 120 countries. During the year, EMCD received recognition from several industry award programs within the digital asset and fintech sectors.

Bridging Crypto and the Real Economy

EMCD’s near-term priorities include tokenized real-world assets (RWA), expansion into Latin America, and a growing presence at global fintech and crypto events.

Institutional Standards and Retail Impact

Who’s harder to serve — retail users or institutions?
Institutions. They require SLAs, APIs, compliance frameworks, and operational stability. It’s demanding.

But once you’ve built to that standard, retail users automatically get a more reliable product. Institutional requirements raise the floor across the board.